


I measure every Grief I meet

by Realmer06



Category: Edgar Allan Poe's Murder Mystery Dinner Party (Web Series)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 14:34:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12750255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Realmer06/pseuds/Realmer06
Summary: Emily is not a fan of being dead, particularly not in this huge mansion so far from home. But then she finds a new purpose.





	I measure every Grief I meet

**Author's Note:**

> With this year's approaching Poe Party Secret Santa, I realized I never posted last year's piece. So here it is! I was given the incredibly specific prompt of "Emily Dickinson."
> 
> This was written for islanderscaper on Tumblr.

This, she thought with a sigh that was equal parts dismay and resignation as she looked around the gloomy kitchen corridor, was all Lavinia’s fault.  _ Emily, go to the party, _ she’d insisted.  _ Emily, it will be good for you. Emily, you should get out of the house and see people for once _ . 

 

Never mind the fact that the idea that getting out of the house and seeing people would do her good went against everything she believed in as a reclusive hermit. She’d  _ told _ Lavinia that something awful would happen if she left, but had her sister listened? No. She’d not only insisted that Emily go to that ridiculous dinner party, she’d actually  _ talked her into it _ , and where was Emily now? Dead. Murdered, to be precise. 

 

_ Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me _ , she recited in her head.  _ The carriage held but just ourselves and the infuriating, bickering spirits of half a dozen other dead authors brutally murdered by a couple of insane, gossip-obsessed sisters and their lying, conniving banker. _

 

She knew the whodunit of the whole evening because she’d been around to watch it unfold, not that anyone had noticed her. But that had been the theme of the evening; why should it change with her death?

 

_ No, no, Emily _ , the calm part of her said rationally.  _ That’s just bitterness talking. _

 

_ You’re right, it damn well is _ , argued the other half of her, the part that was really quite upset about how the evening had turned out.  _ And rightly so! We came out to have a good time, and what happens? _

 

She didn’t know why or how she had returned as a spirit. Lenore had needed that Krishanti woman, but Emily hadn’t needed anyone. She’d just appeared, moments after her demise, invisible to everyone. Maybe she had unfinished business, or something like that. But surely any unfinished business would be centered at her bright, warm, sensibly sized home in Amherst, not here in this dark Gothic mansion, and it was the dark, depressing Gothic mansion she couldn’t leave. She’d tried. 

 

So she was doomed, it seemed, to wander the halls, writing poetry in her head and trying to escape the pervading weight of chaotic and unsettled energy constantly spiralling out from one Edgar Allen Poe, who was not dealing with the aftermath of his dinner party terribly well.

 

Not that Emily could blame him. Nearly a dozen people had been murdered under his roof, one of them by his own hand. It was certainly enough to send anyone into an agonized and paranoid depression, but that didn’t mean Emily wasn’t starting to feel the effects.

 

Lenore felt them, too, Emily observed. But Lenore had somewhere to disappear to, some secret project that took her out of the house for stretches of time. Emily had no such escape, and finally, one night, she couldn’t take it anymore.

 

Nights were the worst, because nights were when Edgar dreamed. When he was awake, he could try and tamp down the guilt and fear and paranoia, but when he was asleep, he had no such respite. The nightmares were intense, and they filled the whole house on a spiritual level. The first night Emily had done something about it, it had been mainly by accident. She’d have run mad if she hadn’t done something about the spiky darkness filling his aura.

 

She hadn’t even known if it would work. But she had to do something, so she’d reached out and just tried to soothe the edges, to tame the fear before it overwhelmed her entirely. The next time the nightmares had come, she’d acted more deliberately.

 

“I might be more help if I knew exactly what these nightmares were about,” she said one night, reaching for the darkness with a by-now-practiced hand. And that was when something strange happened. When she brushed against the nightmare, she saw what it contained. A rock smashing down on a temple. A body hidden beneath the floorboards. A heartbeat like a ticking clock, ominous and inescapable. 

 

She’d seen the altercation with Eddie. She’d seen what Edgar had done. But she hadn’t known until that moment that Edgar was so haunted by it.

 

“Dear me,” she said softly. “You’re tormented because you killed that vile man? Take it from someone  _ he _ killed -- don’t be. He deserved it and then some.”

 

The energy in the room changed then, like he could hear her. Like he was listening. It was a new feeling for Emily, and she wasn’t quite sure what to do with it. Suddenly flustered and nervous, she twisted her hands in her lap. “I just mean,” she said quietly, “that you were acting in self-defense, and that he would have killed you and felt no remorse. So for you to feel this level of torment over his demise . . . my opinion is that it’s unwarranted.”

 

He was calmer after that, his sleep less restless, and she felt a small sense of accomplishment. She had spent the days since her death feeling restless herself, ungrounded and driftless. But helping in this way? It made her feel like she was doing something worthwhile. Meaningful. Substantial. It was a nice feeling. So when the nightmares returned, she slowly learned to speak with more confidence.

 

And the oddest thing started to happen then. He never saw her when he was awake, never noticed or perceived her in the slightest. But when she spoke as he slept . . . he heard her. He responded, in a way, a shifting of his energy like a silent conversation, images offered up in response to her statements. Each night it became easier for her to read what he was feeling, until her nightly visits to calm his troubled soul started to feel more like genuine interactions than most of the conversations she’d had even when she was alive.

 

“I think you’re worrying over nothing,” she said a few nights into this. When he responded with a skeptical shift in energy, she stressed the statement. “No, I really do. How long has it been now since the party? And no one has come asking any more questions. No one is looking for him at all. And no one has any reason to doubt what you’ve said. The Brontes confessed everything; it makes sense that Mr. Dantes would go into hiding.”

 

He had his doubts. What if someone did find out that Eddie wasn’t abroad? What if it was investigated? What if it came back to the mansion and they found the body---

 

“Edgar,” Emily interrupted sternly. “The man confessed to killing or having a hand in killing almost a dozen people. If he’d gone to trial, he would surely have been found guilty and been put to death. You simply . . . expedited that process.”

 

That didn’t sound right to Edgar.

 

“Then consider it this way -- that man was slimier than an eel. Had he gone to trial, he could very well have wriggled out of punishment and could, even now, be walking free. You dispensed justice.” 

 

But that constable had said that even killing in self defense could---

 

“Oh, are we paying attention to the constable now? The one who had to see a dead body being dragged down the stairs by a ghost before he truly realized anything was amiss? The one who died because he was drinking on the job in a highly unprofessional manner and didn’t notice that his wine had been poisoned? I don’t know that I’d take his word on legal processes.”

 

Well, yes, Edgar supposed that was true. But what if, mysterious dream speaker? What if???

 

“Really, Edgar,” she said in a no-nonsense tone. “Worrying about things that haven’t happened is a useless endeavor.”

 

But the beating heart under the floorboards---

 

Emily rolled her eyes. “For heavens’ sake. Channel it into your writing like every other author on the planet. Really.”

 

She didn’t visit him the next night. She spent the hours forcing herself to understand how to move physical objects so she could read the short story he’d spent the day frantically writing. She wasn’t interrupted by a nightmare because for the first time in ages, he hadn’t had one.

 

“It’s very good,” she told him the next night. “Though you are undoubtedly one of the most depressing and macabre authors I’ve ever read.”

 

He thanked her for the compliment.

 

Emily shook her head and left him to his more peaceful dreams. She didn’t know what this existence would look like as time went on. She didn’t know if Edgar would ever realize who haunted his house and soothed his agonized spirit from time to time. But she had found in death what had evaded her in life -- someone who listened to her and valued what she had to say. She’d found a purpose, and for as long as she was needed, she would be there to help keep the nightmares at bay.

**Author's Note:**

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